Thankful...so thankful

What a fun year it's s been. This time last year we were getting to know our sweet new baby girl, miss Mya Jae, who was only one week old. I'm almost positive there is a picture just like this one from last year of my mom talking to Mya. Mya loves her heart to hearts with her Mima.
Mya has her Mima and Papa wrapped around her drooly little finger! She loved spending time with them this holiday. She talked and talked and talked to them. I'm pretty sure she was telling them her Christmas list! I wish I had gotten a picture of Mya with my parent's dog, Dodge, because she was loving having him around. She would talk to him and pet him and do what I call her "cheerleader" face where she has her mouth open wide smiling! I'll have to get a picture of it! What a funny girl!
Ok, these next pictures are out of order because that's how my computer puts my pictures on here and I don't have the energy to change them. So they are backward. But you'll get the general idea. This is Mya in one of my favorite outfits she got for her birthday reading a book in her new princess chair that she got from me and Dan. She loves to sit and read in it. So cute!
Here's my sweet girl eating her birthday cake at her party. It was a great day, great party, and I really think she had a great time!
Here we are singing Happy Birthday to our little one year old. She had a leopard print cake with her picture on it. It couldn't have turned out better!
Why, yes, that is a tutu on my sweet adorable girl! She looked like a real diva princess!
Does it get any cuter than this? I didn't think so!
This is a picture of Mya eating a cupcake on her real birthday. She had no idea what she was supposed to do with it. She ended up just flinging the frosting around and not really eating any of it. I was glad we had a "practice run" because she actually knew what she was supposed to do at her birthday party.
And this is just an adorable picture of my blue eyed girl playing in my hat. She walked around the house forever in it and when I finally took it off of her, she tried to put it back on herself. She is so funny! Mya is such a joy and we are so truly thankful for everything she is and everything she will be. She is silly, sweet, loving, adventurous, shy, talkative, naughty(surely not, right?), and everything we hoped she would be at one year old! Happy Birthday our pretty girl! We love you more than we ever imagined.

Stupid Computer!

So my little baby girl turned one last Friday and we have tons of photos to show from her actual birthday as well as from her birthday party on Saturday. So I finally sat down tonight to upload them and do lots of fun stuff with them, including order some prints and guess what? My computer won't let me upload them. It absolutely refuses to let me get them from my camera to the computer screen. I am so mad! So I just wanted to let you know that we have beautiful fun pictures of our sweet girl...but can't show them off just yet. But soon. Or else. Do you hear me computer? I'm going to throw you in front of a car if you don't work with me here. I don't think it's listening.
Well, anyway, without the pictures, I can tell you that we had a great birthday weekend! Mya had such a good time turning one. We got to spend time with our family and friends and have a great time celebrating Mya's first year of life. She had her one year check up which went really well. I can't believe she's 30 inches long and 19.2 pounds! She is tall and thin according to the charts, which I'm sure can be attributed to all the running around she does, because she certainly knows how to eat! She's developmentally doing great and looks healthy and happy! We're so proud of her. I promise I'll post pictures of our happy healthy missy moo as soon as I can. Until then, Happy Thanksgiving!

Time flies

Happy Halloween... a little late! This year was so much fun since it was Mya's first halloween. We don't usually get too excited about halloween, but isn't she just the cutest K-State cheerleader you've ever seen? She had such a good time walking(toddling) around the block with her cousins. I just love the picture above of us walking together. So cute!
Her cheerleading costume is actually a 2T that someone gave to us, but I couldn't wait until next year for her to wear it. But as you can tell, it was a little big. I love this picture of Mima and Jordan! Jordan was a Manhattan cheerleading and she was so cute!
And here's Dad trying to walk with both Dorian and Mya. That is not easy. Especially because Mya kept tripping over her shoes. Silly girl. In her defense, walking is hard!

Dan took this picture of Mya and it is one of my current favorites. We can't hardly get her to sit still these days, which is a lot of fun! She is always babbling, playing, and most recently, walking!
The above picture was taken at my friend Lindsey's house when Cami turned one. I know it doesn't really look like it, but Cami is actually giving Mya a hug and it was adorable. And Mya didn't even mind it. They got along so well! They are going to be best friends, I can tell!
And I just had to add this picture of me and Camdyn all dressed up in her snow white costume... her favorite princess! Isn't she precious?

Well, that's all I've got for now. Just waiting for Mya's birthday and for Thanksgiving... my favorite holiday! What's not to love about family, friends, and good food? And Dan would add football to that list!

So Much to Cover

Things have been crazy busy here lately, which is why I have not posted anything lately, but I promise we're all still alive and doing well. Here is just a snapshot into our lives. Dan and I went to hang out with some of my dearest high school friends and their spouses. Here is a pic of Kristin and her little man, Jacob (and her newest little man Nathan entered the world just a couple of weeks later) and then there's Morgan with her adorable little guy Camilo. We had such a fun time with them and it was so neat to see all of us as moms together.And then we went to see our friends Cody and Amanda with their little bundle of joy, Ryder! He was born by emergency c-section a month early, but him and mom are doing really well. He is such a sweet baby!Then just recently we went to see Mima and Papa for Mima's birthday. The weather was absolutely wonderful and we played outside for a while one afternoon. Mya loved this ball so much... maybe a good birthday present idea? I'll put that one the list of the million things I want to buy my beautiful girl for her first birthday.
When you have one Mima who doesn't like her picture taken much, one nine year old who can't sit still, and two small children who won't smile or look at the camera when you want them to, this is the best picture you can get!
More recent events, Dan got to have a guy's weekend! One weekend a year, him and his college/high school friends get together and... well, I don't really know what they do, which is the way it should be, I think. It just so happened, that his college friend, Craig, was here from Georgia, so we got to see him for a little bit before he left for his guy's weekend. Here's Dan, Craig, "Uncle Josh" and Mya. I love those guys!
So there's just a little update about us. I am going to try really hard to stay updated on this thing. We've got my best friend's baby's first birthday coming up, then Mya's first birthday *November 20th* and then Thanksgiving! And of course, all the little things in between! So I'll try my best to get pictures up of all the exciting things going on!

Mya's world

Right now, Mya is kind enough to let Dan and I be a part of her world. And because we don't really have a lot going on right now, I thought I'd give you a glimpse into it. So here are some of Mya's favorites things.

Favorite silly song: Bingo (was his name-0)
Favorite show: Wheel of Fortune
Favorite words: dada and a-da
Favorite sounds: farting sounds, of course
Favorite toy: anything that plays music or that she can throw around
Favorite thing to do: there's several, so the top three are taking baths, standing(by herself), and playing with the cabinet doors in the kitchen or bathroom
Favorite foods: peas, mandarin oranges, watermelon, cantaloupe, cheerios, and goldfish
Favorite thing about daddy: he plays "where's daddy" (can't explain it, you just have to see it)
Favorite thing about mommy: sings "Free" by Ginny Owens after every bath (she squeals as soon as I start singing it, and it's not because I'm a good singer)
Favorite thing to do with daddy and mommy: read, read, and read! She loves books!

Our favorite thing: being around Mya and enjoying all of the above things with her!

Just a Few Pics

Things have been super busy around here, but here are a few pictures of us recently. Here is me, Mya, and cousin Camdyn at cousin Silas' birthday party. Silas turned one in August and we were so glad we got to be there to help him celebrate. Camdyn loves helping with Mya, which is so sweet!


Here is the birthday boy and his adorable mommy! He is such a fun one year old!Here's my big girl in her cute little shoes. They are going to be too small for her soon and she hasn't hardly worn them, so I have to try to get her to wear them as much as I can! Thankfully she puts up with me.
How can you not love that face? I love everything about this little person! She is such a blessing!

Especially when she looks like this! This is actually a normal face for her when she wakes up, but the hair... that is not normal. It was sticking up everywhere!
Can you believe our little baby is nine months old already? She had her well baby check up and is healthy, growing good, and obviously loving life. She's got four teeth now(and always working on more), stands by herself, walks around by holding onto things, loves bobbing back and forth to music, loves tilting her head to the side, loves crawling after her daddy, loves taking baths, and loves smiling! Dan and I are doing well too. Dan is substitute teaching and has had jobs everyday since school started. Mya is going to a babysitter that we absolutely love and who lives just minutes away from my work so I can visit during lunch if I want. And I am really enjoying my work as I continue to get the hang of it. We are getting ready to celebrate my 26th birthday next week and I am so excited. I love birthdays! I'm going to see how long I can make my birthday last this year. Who thinks I can make it last all week? Wish me luck!

Gotta love summer time!

We have been swimming! Mya loves to swim, so we have been over at Dan's aunt's house taking advantage of her beautiful pool! I didn't get any pictures of Mya in the pool, but here is one before we went. She has such a cute beach body!
Mya really likes to play in her room so whenever I need to get some stuff done upstairs, she gets to play in her room. This day I wanted to see how she would like sitting in her rocking chair, which actually used to be mine when I was little. Of course, she loved it! She was even trying to rock it herself!
Dan took this picture last week! Isn't it just the cutest? She loves to pull herself up on the window and stand there and play! She thinks she's so big.
I just love these next two pictures! Mya pulls out her cheesy smile whenever she's super happy, which she obviously is here!
And here's Mya and Daddy eating Mya's favorite food... cheerios! I wish you could see all of the dress she's wearing. It's such a cute dress that Aunt Sarah got for Mya. And cousin Camdyn has a matching one. I'll have to take a picture of them wearing it at the same time.
So we have really just been enjoying the warm weather, swimming, grilling, hanging out with family, and spending time with friends. Hope everyone else is enjoying their summer and doing things they love!

My two loves

Mya loves to play with her daddy.

*Keep reading. There's also a new post below.*

All I can say is...

Wow!  My little family has been in Topeka for almost three weeks now!  It has been so much fun to be closer to family and friends, but I feel like we have just been on the go constantly since we moved.  I can't wait for things to slow down a little bit.  Here is just a snapshot of what we have been doing with our time.   I'll start with how Dan and I celebrated out fourth anniversary.   
Dan took me to Kansas City for a night.  It was our first night away from Mya, it was hard but it was very nice.  We stayed in Overland Park and then went to a town called Parkville.  It was such a cute little place.  There was this huge "castle" in the hills that I just loved.  
Dan took me to a wine tasting, which was so cute.  I have been telling him for the last, um, five years that I wanted to do a wine tasting.  He doesn't even like wine, but took me anyway.  What a thoughtful guy.  We had to snap a picture by the Missouri river.  It was such a nice day!

Gotta love girl time!  My friends: Cassie and baby Ethan, Laurel, Lindsey and baby #2 inside, and of course, me and Mya!  I just love those girls so much!  It's amazing how we can just feel so comfortable with each other when we don't get to see each other very often.  

And here's my sweet girl eating at the table like a big girl!  Guess what she's eating?  Pancakes!!  I gotta start her early eating pancakes because that's one of her mommy's favorites!  She ate hers plain, but when she gets big she can have pancakes with peanut butter and syrup.  Yum.

Now I just have to show you my happy clothed baby in her car seat.  The reason I point out that she's clothed is because of the next picture down below.

Here's my naked girl in her car seat.  Here's the totally embarrassing story.  We were eating at a restaurant with some friends and friend's parents.  Everything was going well enough.  Mya was a little fussy but that's because she hadn't gotten her morning nap.  That's not unusual.  When I went to get her out of her high chair to play with her a little, I spotted it...poop.  All over my child's leg and now on my arm.  Nice.  So I take her to the bathroom to clean her up and only have two wipes.  Even nicer.  And no change of clothes for her.  Great.  She's crying because she has strangely developed a hatred for commercial changing tables and people are coming in and out of the bathroom staring.  I did manage to get Mya cleaned up and wipe the poop off my arm and shirt.  Yes, it was on my shirt too.  Here's the best part: as we're getting ready to leave, Dan tells me that not only had Mya got poop all over her and me, but the waitress had to clean up a pile of poop off the floor.  That's how it was described to me...a pile of poop.  Yuck.  Then we walked out of the restaurant with our naked child.  So there she is.  Asleep and naked.  But isn't she just so cute?

I promise to update soon...

Dan, Mya, and I have been in Topeka for over a week now and are still settling in.  We are loving being closer to our families!  There has been so much going on that I haven't had time to do much of anything.  But I promise that when things settle down, I will tell you all about our move, our new home, my new job, and of course, I'll post pictures of everything!  Until then...

Our Firecracker

Mya celebrated her first Independence Day. She stayed up late, played with friends, said the Pledge of Allegiance, sang The Star Spangled Banner, watched fireworks, and enjoyed her freedom! At least until 10:45 when mom and dad said it was time for her to go to bed, which she did very easily... she was so tired after such a long night! I was so worried how she would do staying up so late and being around such loud noises, but she was great. Dan and I were so proud!Here she is watching her first fireworks with Daddy. He was even nice enough to cover he ears.

Mya loves her friend Kaitlyn. They had such a good time hanging out together before the fireworks started. She is going to miss Kaitlyn so much when we move!
And just a couple of photos of Mya Jae in her fourth of July gear. So cute, right?
Another one of my precious girl. Such a sweet face!
And this picture was taken today but is my new favorite! She was eating her whale squeeze toy she plays with in the bath. Can we say teething? Will it ever end?

8 x 8 plus mini update

So I was tagged not once, but twice to do this eight by eight thing a while ago, but because life is always crazy, I am just now getting to it. And because I am lazy, I am only doing it once! So Anne and Haley, this is for both of you!


EIGHT Things I Am Looking Forward to:

1. Moving closer to family

2. Having more kids... or at least one more, we'll see

3. Staying home with kids full time

4. Going on a vacation with Dan someday (even just a night out would be nice at this point)

5. Owning a home

6. Living a debt free life, including student loans and a mortgage(which is weird since we don't even have one yet)

7. Buying a bigger vehicle

8. It kind of goes along with number one, but getting to see my nieces and nephews way more often

EIGHT Things I Did Yesterday (Warning: my life is kind of boring)

1. Played with Mya

2. Went to work

3. Sent a friend a birthday gift

4. Scheduled a hair appointment

5. Ate some Swedish Fish

6. Watched wipeout

7. Went on a walk

8. Caught up with a high school friend

EIGHT Things I Wish I Could Do:

1. Sing because I love to sing, I just don't have any real ability

2. Own a zoo because I love animals

3. Get on a plane or be in any small space and not freak out from claustrophobia

4. Get paid for being home with Mya :)

5. Own a cool cafe that would be a teen hang out at night

6. Get my hair cut and get a pedicure once a month

7. See old friends from high school all the time, not just once every few months

8. Run everyday... yeah right!

EIGHT Shows I Watch:

1. Jon and Kate Plus Eight, although I wish they would stop doing more seasons for the sake of their family

2. Lost

3. My Boys

4. Bachelor/Bachelorette

5. Wipeout

6. Grey's Anatomy

7. Friends

8. The Soup

EIGHT Places I’d Like to Travel to:

1. All 50 states and that's really about it because I can't stand the thought of flying overseas. BUT, if flying for 18 hours didn't scare the poop out of me, here are the other seven places I would like to go.

2. India

3. Rome

4. Spain

5. Japan

6. Ireland

7. Brazil

8. Australia

EIGHT Places I’ve Lived:

1. Clay Center, KS

2. Abilene, KS

3. Manhattan, KS

4. different part of New Jersey

5. Phillipsburg, KS

6. soon to be Topeka

7. who knows

8. who knows

EIGHT(ok, I only have five, who cares) Others that I want to do this 8 x 8 thing:

1. Sarah

2. Tiffany

3. Mom

4. Tracy

5. Laurel


And a mini update for those of you who care... which better be all of you! Dan and I are officially moving to Topeka in the next couple of weeks. We are so excited to be closer to family and friends! Mya is excited to be close to her cousins in Manhattan and Topeka! So my blog updates will probably be few and far between for a while with life being so crazy right now. But I'll do my best to update as often as possible! Oh, and I have tons of new pictures but no time to put them up right now, so I promise the next update will have some!

Just a few favorites

Mya was dedicated at church this last Sunday. It was nothing too fancy, but it was so nice to have her prayed for and dedicated to the Lord at her very first church home. Everyone there loves her so much and is so sad to see us, mostly her, move away.

Here she is in her pretty dress she wore to church. My mom bought it for her for Easter but we already had a dress and it was too big for her anyway, but it worked perfectly for this occasion.

And of course, I just have a few candid shots. Isn't this just such a precious face?

And how about those eyes? My goodness!

And our hilarious girl started screaming this week...for fun! I bet you can imagine how great it is to hear over and over and over. It really sounds like she's throwing a fit, but she's just making noise. I can't say that it's really cute or anything, but it's funny, and it's great to watch her discover new things every week! That's all about Mya for now, although I could always go on and on and on.

In other news, our family is headed out for a long weekend on Friday. I am going to spend Friday and Saturday with my family and Dan is headed to T-town to play in a golf tournament with his dad and brother on Friday. Mya and I will meet back up with Dan and his parents Saturday night and spend Sunday relaxing and visiting family and friends and then... I have an interview on Monday in Topeka. Hopefully it goes well so we can get moving because being far away from my family is really driving me crazy. It was my sister's birthday yesterday and I just hated that I couldn't spend it with her. Next year I will spend it with her for sure!

We're Still Here

I know it's been a while since I've updated, but we are still here! I have so many pictures from the last couple of weeks, so I'm just going to let you take a peek at them and I'll give a few details about each photo. So here they are!Dan's family came to visit over Memorial Weekend and we had such a great time with them! Above is Matt, Sarah, Camdyn, Silas, and me, Dan, and Mya! It's the best you can get when you have three wiggly little ones!

I was taking pictures of Mya the other day(big surprise, right?) and I just thought she looked so cute in this picture. She loves the camera and I'm pretty sure she was trying to get it in this picture!
Dan, kissing his baby, and Mya looking like she wants to get away! Dan thinks this picture is funny!
Beautiful cousins! Mya loved having Camdyn and Silas around for the weekend. And they got along great. Camdyn wanted to hold Mya and she did such a good job, sitting so still, and keeping her on her lap. It was absolutely adorable!
I love this picture of me and my sweets! I love playing with her!
Another great picture of Grandma, Camdyn and Mya. So cute!
Mya hangs out in the hallway in the morning while I get ready for work. She was sitting so cute and she was wearing the outfit her Grandma Barnes had gotten her, so I had to tae a picture. I know you can't read it, but her shirt says "Going Green" under the turtle. Adorable!

Another favorite pic! It's so hard to get what we call a "sweet" smile out of Mya, but this is definitely one of them. She actually has her tongue in her mouth, can you believe it?
And here's Mya, just lounging! She fell over and just stayed like that. She is too funny!

The last picture is amazingly not of Mya, but of my hubby. He had the opportunity to coach the freshmen boys at a tournament in Nebraska. It was a long couple of days of what seemed like never ending games, but they had a great time. They only won one game, but the competition was pretty tough. Anyway, it was a great way to end his coaching experience in Phillipsburg. It was a pretty good weekend. Mya was good and I got to go shopping for a little bit, which was some much needed retail therapy! Well, that's all for now and I'll try not to go so long between updates next time!